1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus using an image pickup apparatus employing image pickup devices such as the CCD (charge coupled device), and more particularly to an image processing apparatus using a multi-eye image pickup apparatus consisting of a plurality of image pickup devices and imaging optical systems such as lenses, etc.
2. Related Background Art
There are recently proposed multi-eye image pickup apparatus for producing a wide panorama image or a high-definition image, having a plurality of image pickup systems each composed of an imaging optical system and an image pickup device, by which images of a common object are taken whereby image signals obtained from the respective image pickup devices are used to produce a combined image.
As a method for obtaining the panorama image there is one in which a plurality of image pickup systems simultaneously take a plurality of images different in object region, a same object existing in the images is extracted, and the images are combined based on information about relative positions between the images of the object, thus obtaining a combined panorama image. As a method for obtaining the high-definition image there is one in which a same object exiting in the images is extracted similarly as in case of the panorama image and an interpolation process is carried out based on information about relative positions in the images to newly obtain a high-definition image.
FIG. 12 shows an example of a multi-eye image pickup apparatus based on the principle of the method for obtaining the high-definition image, in which there are a left image pickup system 1010.sub.L and a right image pickup system 1010.sub.R and images of an object 1101 are taken by the left image pickup system 1010.sub.L and the right image pickup system 1010.sub.R. An image processing apparatus 1120 performs corresponding point extraction from a left image I.sub.L obtained by the left image pickup system 1010.sub.L and a right image I.sub.R obtained by the right image pickup system 1010.sub.R to combine them with each other, whereby a single, higher-definition output image I.sub.out is obtained as compared with the image of the object taken by each single image pickup system.